Opinion: Clark’s parochial pipeline play puts price on environment

CRAIG MCINNES, Vancouver Sun columnist07.30.2012

A photograph of a mock-up model of part of the Enbridge Northern Gateway Project is on display at the company's annual general meeting in Toronto on Wednesday, May 9, 2012. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette

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Premier Christy Clark’s pipeline manifesto has left me wondering which hat to wear before wading into the debate she sparked across the country last week.

As a British Columbian who pays taxes here and benefits directly from any source of revenue the provincial government can tap into that doesn’t come out of my pocket, I’m pretty interested in her notion B.C. deserves a “fair share” of a potential $81-billion bonanza.

Interested, even though I have absolutely no idea what that means and she isn’t elaborating beyond releasing a two-year-old economic analysis that seems suddenly to have become compelling.

That analysis concluded that B.C. would get $6.7 billion, or about eight per cent of the revenue going to governments from Enbridge’s Northern Gateway Pipeline project over 30 years. It was submitted to Enbridge in May 2010.

As a Canadian with a son in Alberta and relatives across the country, I’m not so thrilled about any parochial premier who stands up for her or his province by threatening to pull the plug on any project from which all Canadians can benefit based on a bald-faced cash grab.

And as someone who has been following Clark’s position on Enbridge’s $5.5 billion proposal as it has evolved, I find it difficult not to dismiss out of hand any argument that her new position is anything other than entirely self-serving, even though her 10-day, cross-country publicity fest may have done the province and the country some good.

The good would be the realization by Enbridge executives and Ottawa that if Clark, the head of B.C.’s business-backed, free-enterprise coalition, has come to the point of accepting that supporting Northern Gateway as the project is now constituted is politically toxic, there really is no chance that it can proceed.

I hope that will lead to some sober second thought in Ottawa where the Conservative government, without waiting for the findings of the Joint Review Panel that is still holding hearings into the environmental and economic impact, has been arguing the Northern Gateway Pipeline is in the national interest and should be pushed through.

Until two weeks ago, Clark argued consistently that she couldn’t pass judgment on the plan until after the panel reported. Now she’s able to say it’s so risky that B.C. needs to be compensated for allowing it to go ahead, even if a raft of other conditions are met.

Clark’s change of heart followed the devastating report by the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board that characterized Enbridge’s response to a major pipeline spill in Michigan as “Keystone Kops.”

The report, the substance of which hasn’t been challenged by Enbridge, made it next to impossible to have much faith in the pipeline company’s promise to safeguard B.C.’s treasured wilderness.

If it wasn’t dead already because of the almost universal rejection by first nations along the route, the damning indictment of Enbridge’s ability to either prevent or deal effectively with a spill was a mortal blow to the project, at least politically in British Columbia.

Clark knows this as much as anyone. So her decision to stand up for B.C. now with her five-point list of demands rings more than a little hollow.

The first four demands are particularly meaningless, since conspiracy theorists notwithstanding, if the pipeline is turned down by the joint review panel and fails, as it has, to achieve substantial first nations support, it isn’t going ahead.

Without something on the table of value, the fifth— that B.C. must get its fair share of benefits — is also academic, but still problematic in that it positions British Columbia as a spoiler and stands as a terrible precedent for other interprovincial shipments, including exports from this province.

As environmentalists and first nations leaders pointed out again on Monday, as British Columbians we might have been proud of Clark for standing up on environmental grounds.

But the suggestion inherent in the demand that British Columbians be compensated for the risk we would run from the pipeline and tanker traffic is that A, there is risk and B, we are willing to accept the risk of a catastrophic spill if we get paid enough.

As a Canadian who treasures our physical environment regardless of where the political boundaries lie, I find that equation to be unacceptable.

As a British Columbian, it’s just embarrassing to see our premier allow us to be cast as the trolls under the bridge in a debate that should be focused firmly on minimizing risk, regardless of who benefits.

cmcinnes@vancouversun.com

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